FORMER teacher Dianne Ashman has spent the past five weeks in Cambodia and Thailand advising on the educational aspect of four charity projects.

Ms Ashman said on returning to Bridport that it was a very successful trip for the charity People and Places.

She said: “I have found four projects which are in need of volunteer help, all of them helping children who do not get the sort of care and support we take for granted here in the UK.”

In Cambodia, one project is a community centre that provides schooling, vocational training and practical support for families living well below the poverty line.

Former Colfox teacher Ms Ashman said: “Most live in wooden shacks, many of them suspended above the river which is their source of water for all their daily needs.

“Some live in houses made of banana leaves in the forest.”

The community centre helps with health care and food and provides materials and skilled help to improve their houses.

The second project supports children in Cambodian prisons, where children over the age of 14 are tried in the adult criminal system.

It is a system that is corrupt and depends on bribes for anything from a quick trial date to decent food, said Ms Ashman.

She said: “Most youngsters are not in a position to pay the necessary bribes.

“So they are held in crowded cells for an average of two years before their case even comes to trial. The organisation we have linked up with provides some semblance of normality for these youngsters during the last 18 months of their sentence, giving them training in a trade, as well as trying to rebuild their self-esteem and to re-socialise them before their release.

“Volunteers will work with the charity, helping them to develop their skills in areas such as trauma counselling, rather than with the prisoners themselves.”

In Thailand Ms Ashman looked at what was needed at a school for Burmese migrant workers who come to work on the fishing boats and in the rubber plantations.

The second project is a 125-pupil boarding school set up for orphans and disadvantaged children in the wake of the 2004 tsunami.

Ms Ashman added: “In the immediate aftermath of the tsunami, donations flooded in but of course, as time has passed and other disasters elsewhere in the world have demanded media attention, the victims of the tsunami are no longer top priority for charity donations.”